All notable changes to the Kill Processes extension will be documented in this file.
The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.
- 🎨 Icon Display: Updated extension icon to new design for better visibility in Raycast interface
- 🔧 Icon Rendering: Replaced icon file to ensure proper display across all Raycast themes
- 📁 Icon Location: Moved icon to root directory (
icon.png) for proper Raycast detection - ✅ Path Configuration: Updated package.json to reference
"icon": "icon.png"instead of"icon": "assets/icon.png" - 🔍 Icon Now Visible: Icon now properly displays in Raycast interface after path adjustments
- 🔧 Icon.Presentation Error: Fixed TypeScript compilation error caused by non-existent
Icon.Presentation - ✅ Build Success: Replaced with
Icon.Snippetsfor PowerPoint process icon, ensuring extension builds successfully - 🚀 Extension Loading: Compilation fix resolves issue where extension and icon wouldn't load in Raycast
- 🏗️ Clean Build: Extension now compiles without errors and loads properly in Raycast
- 🔧 Deprecated WMIC Command: Replaced deprecated
wmiccommand with modern PowerShellGet-Process - ⚡ Modern Windows Support: Extension now works on Windows 11 and latest Windows 10 versions where
wmichas been removed - 📊 Improved Data Accuracy: PowerShell provides more reliable process information with JSON output format
- 🖥️ Better CPU Metrics: Real CPU time data from PowerShell instead of simulated values
- Command Migration: Switched from
wmic process get Name,ProcessId,WorkingSetSizeto PowerShell'sGet-Process - Output Format: Changed from CSV parsing to JSON parsing for better reliability
- Buffer Size: Increased output buffer to 10MB to handle systems with many processes
- Error Handling: Enhanced error handling for PowerShell command execution
- Fixed Redundant Instance Information: Removed duplicate instance count display from process subtitles
- Cleaner Visual Hierarchy: Instance count now only appears in the right-side accessories (e.g., "28x")
- Improved Readability: For grouped processes, subtitle is now empty instead of showing redundant instance count
- Consistent Display: Single processes continue to show PID in subtitle while grouped processes show only essential info
- Subtitle Logic: Optimized subtitle display logic to eliminate information redundancy
- UI Consistency: Better alignment with modern UI principles of non-redundant information display
This release adds significant UI/UX improvements and new functionality inspired by the macOS Raycast kill-process extension, implementing Windows-specific solutions for process management.
- Intelligent Grouping: Processes with the same name (e.g., multiple Chrome instances) are now automatically grouped together
- Instance Counting: Groups show as "chrome.exe (5 instances)" with combined statistics
- Individual Actions: Access individual process instances within groups via action panel
- Memory Aggregation: Combined memory usage calculation for grouped processes
- CPU Averaging: Average CPU usage across all instances in a group
- Contextual Icons: Applications now display relevant icons based on their type:
- 🌐 Browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Edge) → Globe icon
- 💬 Communication (Discord, Teams, Slack) → Message icon
- 🎥 Video (Zoom, Skype) → Video icon
- ⚙️ Development (VS Code, Node.js) → Code icon
- 🎵 Media (Spotify, VLC) → Music/Play icons
- 🎮 Gaming (Steam) → Game Controller icon
- 📄 Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) → Document icons
- 📁 System (Explorer, PowerShell) → System icons
- Resource Indicators: Custom CPU and Memory icons in accessories section
- Visual Hierarchy: Better information organization with tooltips
- Dropdown Sorting: Added sorting dropdown in top-right corner with options:
- Memory Usage (default) - sorts by highest memory consumption
- CPU Usage - sorts by highest CPU utilization
- Name - alphabetical sorting
- Real-time Resource Monitoring: Live CPU and memory usage display
- Smart Filtering: Enhanced search capabilities across process names
- Memory Information: Real working set memory usage in MB
- CPU Usage: Simulated CPU usage percentages (placeholder for future real monitoring)
- Resource Validation: Filtered out processes with invalid/zero memory data
- Performance Optimization: Efficient data parsing and validation
- Updated Icons: Custom CPU and memory chip SVG icons optimized for light/dark themes
- Better Accessories: Memory and CPU usage with dedicated icons and tooltips
- Improved Actions: Context-aware actions for single vs. multiple instances
- Instance Management: Individual kill actions for each process in a group
- Command Optimization: Switched to
wmic process get Name,ProcessId,WorkingSetSizefor better data accuracy - Data Validation: Enhanced parsing with null/empty value filtering
- Memory Calculation: Improved bytes-to-MB conversion with proper rounding
- Performance: Optimized grouping algorithms for handling 500+ processes efficiently
- Extension Icon: Updated to new extension_icon.png
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Changed from
Cmd+KtoCmd+X(avoiding Raycast reserved shortcuts) - Package Metadata: Updated extension title to "Kill Processes" with proper casing
- Preferences: Added proper label for settings configuration
- Icon Colors: SVG icons optimized for both light and dark themes (#666666 color)
- Accessories Layout: Better organization of CPU, memory, and instance information
- Process Titles: Enhanced titles showing instance counts for grouped processes
- Subtitle Information: Contextual subtitles showing PIDs or instance counts
- Memory Display: Fixed issue where all processes showed 0 MB memory usage
- Data Parsing: Resolved CSV parsing issues with wmic command output
- Duplicate Information: Removed duplicate memory information from subtitle and accessories
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Fixed reserved shortcut conflicts with Raycast
- Package Validation: Fixed package.json validation errors for Raycast store requirements
- Dependencies: Updated to latest Raycast API versions
- Type Safety: Enhanced TypeScript interfaces for better type checking
- Error Handling: Improved error handling for process enumeration failures
- Code Organization: Better separation of concerns with dedicated utility functions
- Documentation: Comprehensive README.md with installation and usage instructions
- Code Comments: Enhanced code documentation and inline comments
- Debugging: Added console logging for troubleshooting memory calculation issues
- Testing: Improved development workflow with better error reporting
- Basic process listing functionality
- Simple kill process actions
- Search and filter capabilities
- Basic Windows process enumeration via tasklist command
- List running processes on Windows
- Kill individual processes by PID
- Kill all instances of a process by name
- Search processes by name
- Basic toast notifications for actions
This extension is built upon the original kill-processes-ext by dougfernando.
The v2.0.0 enhancements were implemented by studying and adapting UI/UX patterns from:
- Official Raycast kill-process extension for macOS - for visual design and user experience patterns
- windows-terminal extension - for Windows-specific implementation techniques
- everything-raycast-extension - for additional Raycast API usage patterns
All features were implemented from scratch for Windows using:
- Windows
wmiccommands for process enumeration - Custom TypeScript algorithms for process grouping and resource calculation
- Raycast API components for visual interface elements
- Windows-specific icon mapping and resource monitoring
Special thanks to the Raycast team and community for the excellent APIs and documentation that made this enhancement possible.